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The New Acropolis Museum was officially inaugurated on Saturday evening
during a nationally televised and web-broadcast ceremony that brought
together Greece's political leadership and scores of international
dignitaries, boosting hopes that the purpose-built museum's opening
will mark the "reverse countdown" for the long-sought return of the
Parthenon Marbles.

In one of the most poignant moments of the evening, Prof. Dimitris
Pantermalis, the director of the new state-of-the-art facility, pointed
to numerous mutilated sculptures on display in the third-storey
Parthenon Gallery, sculptures whose other half is found at the British
Museum in London. Instead, white-coloured plaster replicas depict the
missing friezes in the New Acropolis Museum most celebrated gallery.

Pantermalis personally gave a guided tour of the 25,000-square-metre
museum to international dignitaries, including EU Commission President
Jose Manuel Barroso and UNESCO Director-General Ko├»chiro Matsuura, who
addressed the ceremony, as well as to Greece's leadership.

"Today, the whole world can see, all together, the most significant
sculptures of the Parthenon. Some are missing. Now is the time to heal
the monument's wounds with the return of the marbles to where they
belong ... their natural setting," Greek President Karolos Papoulias
said in addressing the international audience and television viewers
across the country.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis emphasised that the new
130-million-euro museum belongs to all of humanity and forms part of
the world's cultural heritage.

"In the sacred hill of the Acropolis the world views the forms that
ecumenical and eternal ideals take. In the New Acropolis Museum the
world can now ascertain these forms, these ideals, reuniting them and
allowing them to regain their radiance ... Welcome to a Greece of
civilisation and history; together we are inaugurating a museum for the
supreme monument of the Classical civilisation: the Acropolis Museum,"
Karamanlis said, while again referring to his namesake and uncle, Greek
statesman Constantine Karamanlis, along with iconic Greek actress and
culture minister Melina Mercouri, as protagonists in the decades-long
campaign to build the new museum.

"The Acropolis Museum is a reality for all Greeks; for all the people
of the world. It is a modern monument, open, luminous and is
harmoniously intertwined with Parthenon itself. It permits the Attica
sun to shed its light on the ancient works of culture and allows the
visitor to enjoy and appreciate the details of the exhibits. This
modern monument narrates the history of democracy, art, rituals and
everyday life. It succeeds in harmonically linking antiquity with the
modern world of the technology and imagery. That's why pioneering,"
Karamanlis told the audience of dignitaries, which included lead
architects Bernard Tschumi and Michael Photiadis.

On his part, Greek Culture Minister Antonis Samaras opened his address
by expressing optimism that "the (pieces) that are not here today,
those that were separated and carted off 207 years ago will return.
They will certainly return; the Parthenon and its sculptures were the
victims of plunder. This crime can, today, can be corrected. The museum
serves as the moral force to invite them back; to reunite them," he
stressed.

In attendance were all of the country's past presidents, along with
leaders from Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Slovakia,
Finland, Montenegro, Vietnam and China, together with 21 foreign
ministers from all over the world.

The tour of the Museum, with includes more than 4,000 exhibits spread
over 14,000 square metres of exhibition space, began at 8:30 p.m.
(local time) from the ground floor level and the first hall, which
hosts exhibits (parts of pottery mostly) of a Neolithic settlement once
located on the Acropolis' slopes.

Fragments of pottery dating to the 3rd century BC and believed to be
from a foundation-laying ceremony of Classical antiquity were on
display in a glass-covered crypt in the main concourse, with PM
Karamanlis handing an intact pottery vessel to a museum official who
placed it inside the crypt before it was encased with the glass cover.

Prof. Pantermalis then officially inaugurated the museum with a phrase
in ancient Greek, "the Athenian goddess resides here. No evil may
enter".

Caption: A view of a gallery of the New Acropolis Museum during the
official inauguration on Saturday 20 June in Athens. ANA-MPA/SYMELA
PANTZARTZI

Equity prices were declining at the opening of trade on Monday on the
Athens Stock Exchange (ASE), with the basic share price index down 0.89
percent, standing at 2,213.97 points at 10:45 a.m., and turnover at 8.5
million euros.

Individual sector indices were moving mostly downward, with the biggest
losses in Raw Materials, down 2.21 percent; Public Utilities, down 1.89
percent; and Health, down 1.86 percent.

The biggest gains were in Mass Media, up 0.86 percent; Travel &
Recreation, up 0.71 percent; and Oil & Gas, up 0.22 percent.

The FTSE/ASE 20 index for blue chip and heavily traded stocks was down
0.83 percent, the FTSE/ASE MID 40 index was down 1.63 percent, and the
FTSE/ASE-80 small cap index was down 0.55 percent.